Gatsby
by Dela Eden
Summary: A man is assisting his great-grandmother, who is clearing out her attic. She sees a dress, and remembers her time at Gatsby's parties.


**Gatsby**

'The dress? When did I wear it last? Oh yes, I remember now! I have only worn it once though.' Her voice was course, aged by words that have passed her parchment lips, but my ears were open like an envelope, ready to receive the letters. My great grandmother then was in her latter years, pending the visit of the black angel, and it became clear to me but a few months later how near he was, a shadow of my gran.

I attended her that day on a mission to clear her attic. Within her old age, and not mentioning the passing of her partner, she had become somewhat withdrawn within herself, and often it was said that she had not ratified that fact at the time, and I am not wholly alone in believing that she still has not. Howbeit, my kin found that the hag, believing my possessing of qualities not dissimilar to her own, would often confide in me, and, with her being of a very kaleidoscopic temperament, they felt it best that I would be the one to visit, the one to coax her into following through our plans for her to move into care.

'When was that?' I, as always, had my curiosity arisen by her. She was remarkable, beyond most others. The dress she held in her arms was pulchritudinous, and I watched as she lifted it up and rested it on what had been its coffin for many years.

'I was clothed in it when I accompanied my acquaintance Anna-Rose to one of the late Gatsby's parties.'

'What is he?' I held the gown, and felt for a moment conquered by it. I tried to glimpse her some time ago, stood, admiring how the design inveigled her, though my vision was obscured somewhat by the void between our years. Howbeit, it was far more vibrant than I had reason to believe, and my gran explained this as time passed, how the attire was going through a phase of sorts. How it became a jest of past society.

'I don't know. Despite the merrymaking and the actuality that he was the host, I glimpsed him no more than once, yet, even then, I passed not a moment with him. The abode in which he resided was the most alluring ever to be lived in in West Egg, to some extent taking in the abstruseness he arose. The grandeur would become, every Saturday night, alive.

'You would get but moments of seeing him, distinguishing him standing outside, watching the convivial atmosphere heighten. Per contra, you could tell the distraction on his face, and often I could tell that he struggled to enjoy each evening. The poor man would spend perhaps half an hour mingling, and then an hour mounted at the top of the staircase, skimming the surface of frolics occurring below, as if he were looking for a ship among the waves. I sympathised with him greatly. You could tell that he was looking for someone. Agony delineated on his contorted features showed that that person Gatsby wanted to locate never appeared with a partner at their arm or with their hair fastened in the most outlandish way.

'And when he came to a sudden realisation that once again they would not attend, he would wistfully sail down the steps and out of the doors, pausing momentarily to mutter a word or two of sorts to his butler. Shattered, he would then spend a few moments at a time standing, staring at the clouds blocking the moonlight, before his thoughts were interrupted by a call from a far-flung corner of America. He would turn then, and walk, disheartened, back into the house.

'What was the ambience like there? Did everyone dress in clothes like this?'

'Yes, everyone would dress in things like this. One of my many companions was asked to produce a newspaper article after the passing of Gatsby. It should be contained within this box. Ah, yes, here it is. 'The colours, as if to meet the eye, came in a somewhat spontaneous yet pleasing manner. Howbeit, they became drawn obscurely behind the next too expeditiously for them to utter a form of salutation. Yet, after a while, mine eye accustomed to this, and became certain that what occurred there every night was not wholly a moment of liberation from the tiresome drabness of life and law, but a moment of splendour. They were incommensurable; there is no denying that fact.' That, in my view, is the best way it could be described.'

'Did he invite many then?'

'No, he invited next to none of the guests. They invited themselves. That was the despondence of it in actuality. Nobody concerned himself with the depressiveness of his temperament. The free entertainment and alcohol was the reason they were there. I doubt that many even spoke a word to him, or knew even who he was.'

'Who was he trying to find?'

'Well, there was a rumour going around that he had brought the house to be opposite the bay from her, though no one ever knew exactly, and I don't know the truth.'

'Did he ever find her?'

'I don't know. His parties stopped towards the end, so I presume he did. They were to attract her, and once he grasped her attention, I suppose he did not need to.'

'What happened to this Gatsby then?' The characteristics of him intrigued me somewhat. The man was broken like a poor man.

'A while after the last party, he was shot. I tried to go to his funeral, but I could not make it. A week later, I spent an afternoon at his neighbour's house, Mr. Carraway. Nobody else made it either. Not even her.'

Gatsby stayed in my mind for many weeks, and it was that that made me hunt down his remains after the passing of my great-grandmother, as an ode of sorts to her memory of him.

And I found, among the neat graves, one that was hidden by the grass dampening the bottoms of my jeans like the world hidden by the morning fog. I pulled at the grass until I was certain humankind could see it. I pulled a few loose coins out of my pocket, and purchased some overly priced flowers from a gypsy at the corner. I rested them against the headstone, and stood back admiring my work.

Next to it, I found another.


End file.
